Some Famous
Ghosts of the
National Capitol

edited by Joseph Lewis French

The Capitol at Washington is probably the
most thoroughly haunted building in the world.

Not less than fifteen well-authenticated
ghosts infest it, and some of them are of a more than
ordinarily alarming character.

What particularly inspires this last remark
is the fact that the Demon Cat is said to have made its
appearance again, after many years of absence. This is a
truly horrific apparition, and no viewless specter such as
the invisible grimalkin that even now trips people up on the
stairs of the old mansion which President Madison and his
wife, Dolly, occupied, at the corner of Eighteenth Street
and New York Avenue, after the White House was burned by the
British. That, indeed, is altogether another story; but the
feline spook of the Capitol possesses attributes much more
remarkable, inasmuch as it has the appearance of an ordinary
pussy when first seen, and presently swells up to the size
of an elephant before the eyes of the terrified observer.

The Demon Cat, in whose regard testimony of
the utmost seeming authenticity was put on record
thirty-five years ago, has been missing since 1862. One of
the watchmen on duty in the building shot at it then, and it
disappeared. Since then, until now, nothing more has been
heard of it, though one or two of the older policemen of the
Capitol force still speak of the spectral animal in awed
whispers.

Their work, when performed in the night,
requires more than ordinary nerve, inasmuch as the interior
of the great structure is literally alive with echoes and
other suggestions of the supernatural. In the daytime, when
the place is full of people and the noises of busy life, the
professional guides make a point of showing persons how a
whisper uttered when standing on a certain marble block is
distinctly audible at another point quite a distance away,
though unheard in the space between.

A good many phenomena of this kind are
observable in various parts of the Capitol, and the extent
to which they become augmented in strangeness during the
silence of the night may well be conceived. The silence of
any ordinary house is oppressive sometimes to the least
superstitious individual. There are unaccountable noises,
and a weird and eerie sort of feeling comes over him,
distracting him perhaps from the perusal of his book. He
finds himself indulging in a vague sense of alarm, though he
cannot imagine any cause for it.

Such suggestions of the supernatural are
magnified a thousand fold in the Capitol, when the watchman
pursues his lonely beat through the great corridors whose
immense spaces impress him with a sense of solitariness,
while the shadows thrown by his lantern gather into strange
and menacing forms.

One of the most curious and alarming of the
audible phenomena observable in the Capitol, so all the
watchmen say, is a ghostly footstep that seems to follow
anybody who crosses Statuary Hall at night. It was in this
hall, then the chamber of the House of Representatives, that
John Quincy Adams died--at a spot indicated now by a brass
tablet set in a stone slab, where stood his desk. Whether or
not it is his ghost that pursues is a question open to
dispute, though it is to be hoped that the venerable
ex-President rests more quietly in his grave. At all events,
the performance is unpleasant, and even gruesome for him who
walks across that historic floor, while the white marble
statues of dead statesmen placed around the walls seem to
point at him with outstretched arms derisively. Like the man
in Coleridge's famous lines he

"---- walks in fear and dread
Because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him
tread."

At all events he is uncertain lest such may
be the case. And, of course, the duties of the watchman
oblige him, when so assigned, to patrol the basement of the
building, where all sorts of hobgoblins lie in wait.

One of the Capitol policemen was almost
frightened out of his wits one night when a pair of flaming
eyes looked out at him from the vaults under the chamber of
the House of Representatives where the wood is stored for
the fires. It was subsequently ascertained that the eyes in
question were those of a fox, which, being chevied through
the town, had sought refuge in the cellar of the edifice
occupied by the national Legislature. The animal was killed
for the reason which obliges a white man to slay any
innocent beast that comes under his power.

But, speaking of the steps which follow a
person at night across the floor of Statuary Hall, a bold
watchman attempted not long ago to investigate them on
scientific principles. He suspected a trick, and so bought a
pair of rubber shoes, with the aid of which he proceeded to
examine into the question. In the stillness of the night he
made a business of patrolling that portion of the principal
Government edifice, and, sure enough, the footsteps followed
along behind him. He cornered them; it was surely some
trickster! There was no possibility for the joker to get
away. But, a moment later, the steps were heard in another
part of the hall; they had evaded him successfully. Similar
experiments were tried on other nights, but they all ended
in the same way.

Four years ago there died in Washington an
old gentleman who had been employed for thirty-five years in
the Library of Congress. The quarters of that great book
collection, while housed in the Capitol, were distressingly
restricted, and much of the cataloguing was done by the
veteran mentioned in a sort of vault in the sub-cellar. This
vault was crammed with musty tomes from floor to ceiling,
and practically no air was admitted. It was a wonder that he
lived so long, but, when he came to die, he did it rather
suddenly. Anyhow, he became paralyzed and unable to speak,
though up to the time of his actual demise he was able to
indicate his wants by gestures. Among other things, he
showed plainly by signs that he wished to be conveyed to the
old library.

This wish of his was not obeyed, for reasons
which seemed sufficient to his family, and, finally, he
relinquished it by giving up the ghost. It was afterward
learned that he had hidden, almost undoubtedly, $6000 worth
of registered United States bonds among the books in his
sub-cellar den--presumably, concealed between the leaves of
some of the moth-eaten volumes of which he was the appointed
guardian. Certainly, there could be no better or
less-suspected hiding-place, but this was just where the
trouble came in for the heirs, in whose interest the books
were vainly searched and shaken, when the transfer of the
library from the old to its new quarters was accomplished.
The heirs cannot secure a renewal of the bonds by the
Government without furnishing proof of the loss of the
originals, which is lacking, and, meanwhile, it is said that
the ghost of the old gentleman haunts the vault in the
sub-basement which he used to inhabit, looking vainly for
the missing securities.

The old gentleman referred to had some
curious traits, though he was by no means a miser--such as
the keeping of every burnt match that he came across. He
would put them away in the drawer of his private desk,
together with expired street-car transfers--the latter done
up in neat bundles, with India-rubber bands.

Quite an intimate friend he had, named Twine,
who lost his grip on the perch, so to speak, about six years
back. Mr. Twine dwelt during the working hours of the day in
a sort of cage of iron, like that of Dreyfus, in the
basement of the Capitol. As a matter of fact, Dreyfus does
not occupy a cage at all; the notion that he does so arises
from misunderstanding of the French word "case,"
which signifies a hut.

However, Twine's cage was a real one of iron
wire, and inside of it he made a business of stamping the
books of the library with a mixture made of alcohol and
lampblack. If the observation of casual employees about the
Capitol is to be trusted, Mr. Twine's ghost is still engaged
at intervals in the business of stamping books at the old
stand, though his industry must be very unprofitable since
the Government's literary collection has been moved out of
the Capitol.

Ghosts are supposed to appertain most
appropriately to the lower regions, inasmuch as the ancients
who described them first consigned the blessed as well as
the damned to a nether world. Consequently, it is not
surprising to find that phantoms of the Capitol are mostly
relegated to the basement.

Exceptions are made in the case of
Vice-President Wilson, who, as will be remembered, died in
his room at the Senate end of the building, and also with
respect to John Quincy Adams, whose nocturnal perambulations
are so annoying to the watchmen. Mr. Wilson is only an
occasional visitor on the premises, it is understood,
finding his way thither, probably, when nothing else of
importance is "up," so to speak, in the spiritual
realm which now claims him for its own. It is related that
on one occasion he nearly frightened to death a watchman who
was guarding the coffin of a Tennessee Senator who was lying
in state in the Senate Chamber. The startle was doubtless
uncontemplated, inasmuch as the Senator was too well bred a
man to take anybody unpleasantly by surprise.

There was a watchman, employed quite a while
ago as a member of the Capitol police, who was discharged
finally for drunkenness. No faith, therefore, is to be
placed in his sworn statement, which was actually made, to
the effect that on a certain occasion he passed through the
old Hall of Representatives--now Statuary Hall--and saw in
session the Congress of 1848, with John Quincy Adams and
many other men whose names have long ago passed into
history. It was, if the word of the witness is to be
believed, a phantom legislative crew, resembling in kind if
not in character the goblins which Rip Van Winkle
encountered on his trip to the summits of the storied
Catskills.

But--to come down to things that are well
authenticated and sure, comparatively speaking--the basement
of the Capitol, as has been said, is the part of the
building chiefly haunted. Beneath the hall of the House of
Representatives strolls by night a melancholy specter, with
erect figure, a great mustache, and his hands clasped behind
him Who he is nobody has ever surmised; he might be, judging
from his aspect, a foreigner in the diplomatic service, but
that is merely guess. Watchmen at night have approached him
in the belief that he was an intruder, but he has faded from
sight instantly, like a picture on a magic lantern slide.

At precisely 12.30 of the clock every night,
so it is said, the door of the room occupied by the
Committee on Military and Militia of the Senate opens
silently, and there steps forth the figure of General Logan,
recognizable by his long black hair, military carriage, and
the hat he was accustomed to wear in life.

Logan was the chairman of this committee,
and, if report be credited, he is still supervising its
duties.